FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 27, 2008
CONTACT:
David Willet, 202.675.6698
New Letter, No Action from EPA on Global Warming
EPA Continues to Ignore Supreme Court
Washington, D.C.-- With a letter sent late yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency has missed yet another important deadline on the action the Supreme Court ordered it must take on global warming pollution in the case Massachusetts v. EPA. EPA has continually failed to make the "endangerment finding" or offer a lawful reason for not doing so, as required by the Court. It has also failed to issue draft regulations for global warming emissions from vehicles, something that was promised on numerous occasions by the President and other administration officials.
The Sierra Club and eleven other environmental groups involved in the original case sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on January 23, 2008 requesting that he notify plaintiffs--no later than February 27th--exactly when EPA would make the endangerment finding and issue the draft regulations.
Yet late yesterday EPA sent a letter which reads, in part, "As a result, at this time, the Agency does not have a specific timeline for responding to the remand. However, let me assure you that developing an overall strategy for addressing the serious challenge of global climate change is a priority for the Agency, and we are taking very seriously our responsibility to develop an effective, comprehensive strategy."
Statement of David Bookbinder, Sierra Club Chief Climate Counsel
"EPA has offered no good reason for dragging its feet. Not only has EPA ignored the highest court in the land, it has ignored deadlines set by the President and its own officials. Just as EPA ignored the clear meaning of the Clean Air Act for nearly seven years, it has now spent a year ignoring the Supreme Court.
"After a Rose Garden photo op with the President and his Cabinet proclaiming their desire to act in response to the Court’s watershed global warming decision, the administration has walked away from its repeated public promises. This is just the latest example of a disturbing and ever-widening gap between this administration’s rhetoric and the unfortunate reality when it comes to action on global warming.
"Unless EPA owns up to its obligations immediately, we will be forced to take the administration back to court to ensure that it finally does what the Supreme Court has to ensure that it does what the law demands and the High Court has ordered it to do."
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